The plaudits keep coming for Australian sharpshooter Sam Kerr who has been named one of five finalists for the BBC Women’s Footballer of the Year award.
Kerr has been named along with Denmark’s Pernille Harder, England’s Lucy Bronze, Dzsenifer Marozsan (Germany) and Lieke Martens (Netherlands) for the gong, with the winner announced on May 22.
The shortlist was selected by a panel of experts involved in the game from around the world, including coaches, players, administrators and journalists.
“I guess it’s pretty crazy to think out of the whole world there’s only five players (that have) been nominated,” said Kerr.
“There are so many great players that I look up to and I don’t put myself in the same sentence as them so obviously it’s a huge honour and a pretty surreal feeling to be honest.”
The 24-year-old Kerr has been in dominant form for the national women’s team and only last week led the Matildas to the final of the women’s Asian Cup, where they went down in a disappointing 1-0 defeat to Japan.
Last year’s winner was Norwegian Ada Hegerberg who plays for Olympique Lyonnais while Arsenal’s Scottish international Kim Little took out the award in 2015.
Gerry
Roar Rookie
I have not done enough research on it and I am not sure I want to if complex political wrangling is involved as it is inevitably. However I feel that women’s sports are getting more popular and more exposure, slowly but surely. Top female athletes like Jessica Ennis, Ellyse Perry, Sam Kerr and Sally Pearson as well as the success of the women’s cricket team, netball team and soccer team are really getting higher profiles and generating excitement from the public. My step daughter is just starting to get involved in sports and netball and it would be fabulous to see her progress as she has never been a sporty person. it may be a pipe dream but it would be absolutely radical if there could be a world competition featuring all the major field world sports such as soccer, rugby 7’s, shortened version of Twenty20 cricket, (Ten ten as played in the UAE recently) hockey, basketball, volleyball, netball and baseball with the AFLW and perhaps American football being invitational sports to spread their coverage. With no single game being longer than an hour and held in a neutral seasonal month such as September for both hemispheres to participate. It could be called something like the Pan60 Women’s Games. (60 referring to 60 mins) Of course all the formalities and details would need to be fleshed out but it would be a bold move and I guess people are just going to ridicule it. Anyway it’s just a thought. If it worked though, you can bet the men’s competition would gladly follow. As a man I would not care if the women got there first and indeed would applaud it. What do you reckon? Or should I just crawl back into my hole. Haha.I am serious though. It would really help to propel women’s sports into the place it should be now.
chris
Guest
Good luck Sam : ) I think its time you picked up an individual award against your world peers and it would be thoroughly deserved.